


The Phone

by MrsHamill



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 11:03:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tag to the movie "Captain America: Civil War" in which Tony gets his arse handed to him. Gently. Because Steve doesn't like that kind of language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Phone

**Author's Note:**

> Something that wormed into my head and jumped, yelled and stomped until I wrote it, the first thing I've actually written in like ten years or so. Thanks to Sian for the quick beta.

After reading Steve's (astonishing, frustrating and yes, okay, humbling) letter ten (or maybe fifty) times, Tony looked at the phone (a goddamned flip-phone! so old it should be covered in dinosaur skin!). He got up, opened his safe and put both phone and letter in there.

Two hours later, he took the phone out of the safe and put it back on his desk. He tried to work and couldn't, skimmed the internet, looked at the phone, tried to work again and couldn't. He opened his locked desk drawer and put the phone in there, locking it back up, and went to order pizza for dinner.

Less than an hour later, he unlocked the drawer and pulled the damned thing back out. It looked brand-new. Who the hell was manufacturing flip-phones these days, some fourth world country? It was probably (definitely) a clone, but he knew if he tried, he'd be able to trace the signal if (when) he used it. Getting angrier at himself, he finally got up, went down to the Sanctum Sanctorum and put it in the safe nobody but him (and Pepper, always Pepper) knew about, and went back upstairs to his workshop.

Three o'clock in the fucking morning, he gave up trying to sleep, trying to work, and opened the safe to get the phone. He retired to his private desk (while telling himself for the billionth time that there was nothing odd about having a 'public' and 'private' desk, thank you very much), stared at the phone for another half hour or so, then finally picked it up.

It was nearly fully charged, which was good, since he didn't think he could find a charging cable for it anyway. It was also not hard to figure out how to call -- he hit speed-dial number two and enter, and a phone on the other side began to ring.

Steve's voice sounded tired. "Tony. Is everything okay?"

No, more than tired. Exhausted. "Why?!" Tony didn't mean to demand it, didn't mean to sound so hostile, but it was three-twelve in the fucking morning and... "Why would you do that? You know I could use it to find you, I could tell people, so _why_??"

After a moment, he heard Steve sigh. It took another few moments for him to speak and when he did, it was something out of left field. "Did you know that when I was born, my parents were told I'd probably be dead by age five, or definitely by puberty?"

Tony blinked in shock. No, he hadn't known that. He wondered why, since he'd read (he'd thought he'd read) all the notes on the Rogers experiment. Even his father's private notes.

When Tony didn't speak, Steve kept going. "I started kindergarten at six and looked -- at most -- four. Even the little girls bullied me." It sounded to Tony like Steve was rubbing his face with one hand and he sighed again. "Then there was my savior, named James Buchanan Barnes. The Buchanan was his maternal grandfather's name, and everyone called him Bucky. He lived in the same apartment building as me and he wouldn't let anyone get within ten feet of us. He shared his lunch with me because by then, my father had taken off and mom couldn't afford anything more than two-day-old bread and cheese. Milk was a powder that I added water to."

Tony closed his eyes. Jesus, this was horrible. What was worse, though, was he figured he knew where Steve was going with it.

"Bucky wasn't just my best friend, he was my _only_ friend. Even after I got super-sized, nobody talked to me. I was put on display, wasn't even allowed to fight. Until Bucky got taken."

Okay, this was familiar territory, Tony knew all this part. 

"When I couldn't save Bucky, when he... fell..." Tony heard Steve's breath hitch, "it was like someone ripped the heart out of me. Bucky was everything to me. My friend, my family, my guardian, my lo-- my lookout, everything, Tony." Another moment of silence, then a wobbly, " _Everything_."

Stunned, it took Tony a second to figure out how to talk again. Steve... were Steve and Barnes... did he mean... Finally, he blurted, "Peggy?"

Steve sighed. "I loved Peggy with all my heart and would have married her. But she knew, she knew that what Bucky and I had was special." He laughed a little, a broken sound, somewhere between chuckle and sob. "Buck and I got roaring drunk once and he tried to convince me to have a threesome."

There was silence on both ends of the call for a while after that. Tony tried to reconcile his rage at Barnes for killing his parents (it wasn't him! a little voice that sounded like Steve's insisted) with what he'd just heard about the man. It was... hard. Also, it would have taken a _lot_ of liquor to get Rogers drunk so he wondered how Barnes had managed it.

Finally, Steve said -- in a voice so small as to be a whisper -- "Tony. How's Pepper?"

Unnamed emotions rose in Tony so fast they clotted in his throat and prevented him from speaking. After he swallowed most of them down, he managed to squeeze out, "We haven't... I mean, she's not..." He clenched both hands into fists and pushed out, "She caught me. With Banner. She saw. It was..." Horrible, he thought. Devastating. And it wasn't even as if she hadn't given him carte blanche on the topic, she had, she had told him she didn't even care, as long as he was honest with her, which he had not been.

"Ah, God. Tony." Steve sounded as wounded as Tony felt. "I need to tell you something, something that happened between us, but you can't tell her I told you."

Confused, Tony said, "What? Between the two...?"

"It was at one of your parties, get-togethers, it was just us. Before Sokovia. Barton cracked a joke about something, and it must have clicked in your brain because you turned to Banner and started spouting... what does Nat call it? Babble-tech?"

"Techno-babble," Tony whispered.

"Barton and Rhodes just rolled their eyes at each other and got up to get another drink. Pepper had this.... look on her face and she was staring a hole into the floor. I couldn't take it, so I asked her, how do you stand it? Playing second-fiddle to knowledge, technology? It can't be easy."

Tony leaned forward until his forehead rested on the desk. Steve kept talking. "Nat got up and went to the bar, but she knew, she knew Pepper was hurting. When Nat came back, she handed Pepper a glass full of something, so strong I could smell it across the room. Pepper took a sip and made a face. 'I'm his best friend,' she finally said, so softly only Nat and I could hear it. 'He's got other friends,' she said, 'he's got Happy and Rhodes and you guys but he needs someone to be there when he has a nightmare. To shoot him down when he gets too high. To rein him in when he goes too far, too fast. And I love him and I'll take that role, because I know he'll always come back to me.' Then she drank the rest of whatever was in her glass and carefully put it on the table between us."

Tony moaned softly. "Are you trying to rip my heart out?" he asked, and his voice sounded half-strangled even to him. "I know..."

"Tony, I'm sorry, but you need to hear this. Once Pepper stopped talking, Nat and I looked at each other and Nat helped her up and, well, she said she 'poured' her into bed. I left shortly after that." Steve paused and cleared his throat. "You asked me why, why I'd give you the phone. It's because you're my *friend*. You never stopped being my friend, ever. It's just that I owe so much more to Bucky, just like you owe to Pepper. Call her, Tony. You need her and you need to tell her that. I finally got my second chance with Buck; don't wait for a miracle to hand you your second chance with Pepper."

How many times had he joked that Pepper was his conscience, and how many times had that actually been true? How many times had he fucked up with her, and how many times had she forgiven him? Jesus Christ, he really did need her, and of course, it would take her to tell him that. It might have been through the medium of Steve Rogers, but it was still Pep talking. He rubbed his hand over the scar where his heart had been fixed because it was aching but the ache was too far inside for his hands to be any comfort.

Trying hard to regain control of himself and the conversation, Tony asked, "Where's Barnes now?" and he didn't mean geographically, and suspected Steve knew that.

He did. "He's... he's on ice. Literally. He said he couldn't trust himself until we figured out how to get the Hydra conditioning out of his head. So we're working on that but it's an uphill struggle."

Ah. Cryo. That narrowed down their possible locations, not that Tony would ever, ever tell anyone (but Pepper should know, Pepper should know everything). "If you... if you get stuck and think I might be able to have some, you know, input, let me know, okay?"

Tony could actually hear the relief in Steve's voice. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks." They were silent with each other until Steve added, "Listen, we _could_ use a little help, just not on that yet. Barton needs to go home, and we don't know if his house is being watched -- though it probably is. Can you--"

"Yeah," Tony leapt at the idea. "Yeah. I can do that." He lifted his head from the desk. "You need help getting him back here?"

"No, we've got that covered," Steve replied. "And Nat knows about him, so you can get her help if you need to."

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I'll ask her."

After another few moments, Steve finally said, "Take care, Tony. Be careful. You're under watch too. Oh, and check in on Vision? Wanda's worried about him."

It took a minute, but Tony managed to say, "Will do. You... be careful too. I think you can call this cheap-ass phone as well as get calls from it."

"Yeah. Thank you, Tony. Bye."

"Bye," Tony said, and then to the disconnected phone, "thank you too."

Tony sat at his desk for a long time, until Friday reminded him that it was dawn and he should eat something. He did so, on auto-pilot, then checked his watch -- Pepper should be at her desk, so he called her.

She was. "Tony, I'm on my way to a meeting--"

"Wait, wait, just a... wait? Please? I just need to tell you something."

Pepper sighed. "What?"

"I need to tell you... I'm sorry. I need you. I miss you. It's been hammered home to me recently that we all need someone to rely on and for better or worse, you're that person for me. Please. Can we meet? Can I see you? Please?" Tony held his breath, *willing* her to say yes. Worrying about her saying no.

After a long few minutes, he heard her draw a breath. "Yeah." Tony figured out how to breathe again at that word. "Take me to dinner tonight. Be here at five-thirty."

"I will. I swear I will. Pep..."

"I know, Tony."

"No, I need... I-I love you. I may never be able to say that again, but I do."

"I know, Tony." He could almost hear the smile in her voice. "Now I really do have to get to this meeting. I'll see you at five-thirty."

They were going to be all right. "Okay. See you then." They were actually going to be all right. Tony killed the connection and told himself his eyes were watering because his omelet had had too much black pepper in it.

 

end


End file.
